However as a general rule if a move is illegal in competition then it’s a good indication that it’s an awesome last ditchself defence move. In this instance the rule holds true. Therefore even though I am only aware of fishhooks because of a renegadeJu Jitsuinstructor; and even though it’s certainly not something that just anyone should know about, I’m still going to tell you how to do it anyway.

This should make your opponent open their mouth which will make the fishhooks easier to apply. The mastoids run from the ear lobe to the bottom of the jaw and are an extremely painful cluster of nerve points. You can test these now by poking gently in that region.

Your fingers are the hooks and the opponent is the fish. You don’t actually want to go too deep with the fingers. The first knuckle is more effective than a whole finger, as it allows more leverage to be brought to bear later on.

If you like causing yourself pain you too can experience this whilst sitting at your desk, but don’t give me a downvote if you do it too hard. (Just remember that when you do it to someone else it will actually be easier to cause damage due to the more natural orientation of your wrists when applying this from behind.)

Obviously you do not want to do the next step in training, (or indeed ever) but I will add it because its important to know how powerful this technique is. However before I do that I need to think of a highly unlikely situation where the use of this might be practical just to ease my conscience.

From this initial tear you can continue to strip the flesh from the bone structure of the face. (I have this terrible pun about "facing charges" if you ever do this, but I can’t find a way to work it in…)

I think that the truly horrifying thing about this move is how effortless it would be. Once you have someone’s lips pulled back it would just takes a slip of the wrist to tear them clean off. Think of your face as being a tender roast chicken, how hard is it to grab plateful of breast meat?

Making a meal of someone’s face is exactly the same; except the conversation afterwards isn’t as pleasant nor is it particularly articulate.

Alternate application:

From a wing chung point of view (cheers Dad) you can get people to apply the move to themselves by attacking the eye at the same time as the mouth. The natural reaction is to turn rapidly away from the eye gouging move, thus pulling the fishhooks onto their cheeks. This move is normally applied from the side or the front.

All very nasty stuff and if you’re not into this sort of thing then I apologise, but the fact is that martial artists usually find this kind of ludicrousviolence which isn’t even seen on kung fu movies quite funny. There’s no way of really explaining why it’s funny, I suppose we just need nastierslapstick.
Disclamer: Errr… Do not do this to anyone else ever. Go to a dojo to receive genuine martial arts instruction. If you hurt yourself or anyone else following this guide then you are a moron. I have only a lowlygreen belt in Ju Jitsu and so I am not an expert. Your mileage may vary.

1Fishhooks were outlawed in UFC6 after Tank Abbots tried to apply one. I don’t know the details of what happened, but this is the same nutter who almost threw someone out of the octagon so I’m imagining that the results weren’t pretty

2Carol Burnett once gave Bill Cosby an example of what childbirth was like: "Take your bottom lip, pull it as far away from your face as you can, and now pull it over your head."